No plan survives contact with the elements

An ominous title for the start of #cycletour2018...

But let’s back up a bit. The trip actually started yesterday morning at 5:15 am, which is when we pulled out of the driveway in our little Honda Fit and began the 11-hour journey to Prince Edward Island, where we will be spending the next two weeks. As long, tedious drives go, it went as well as can be expected. Once you get into New Brunswick, the driving is a breeze, since the province has these lovely four-lane highways with almost no one on them. To ease the monotony, we read several chapters of Anne of Green Gables to each other – a book that, believe it or not, neither of us has ever read before. I must say, it’s a delight!

Some reading for the road

We pulled into Charlottetown around 5:30 local time and checked into the BnB we had booked – the lovely Sonata Inn. After settling in, we wandered around downtown looking for our dinner. We ended up at a craft beer bar, naturally, but we were both pretty zonked after the drive, so after our meal, we wandered down to the waterfront and looked around for a bit before heading back to the inn and bed. We were both snoring by 10 pm.

Downtown Charlottetown on a Friday night – party central

This morning, we were up at 6:30 to pack our panniers, have breakfast and then head off to the shuttle that was to take us to the western tip of the island. We used PEI Guide and Drive Service, run by George Larter, who had been very helpful on the phone earlier in the year as we were planning the trip. We arrived at about 8:45 but by the time everything was packed into the van and ready, it was 9:30 before we left. Then the two-hour drive to North Cape at the very western tip of PEI.

Sonia and Gord get the bikes ready

The whole point of starting at the western tip of the island is that the prevailing winds in North America tend to be westerly. So in theory, we should mostly have a tailwind on this trip. Unfortunately, someone forgot to mention this little fact to Mother Nature, because the wind was blowing pretty steadily from the east-northeast all day today. But, undaunted, we dipped the proverbial toe into the waters and set off on our adventure.

Ready for our adventure

One of the things we wanted to do on this trip was take the Confederation Trail, a bike trail that more or less crosses the island. But we were advised by a number of people that if we stuck to the trail the whole way, we’d miss most of the coastal scenery. And anyway, the CT doesn’t go all the way to North Cape. So we took George’s advice and stuck to Route 12 today for most of the day. We’re not used to riding on roads and neither of us particularly enjoy it, but we were assured that there was little traffic. What a lie that turned out to be. Maybe there’s no traffic on a weekday in mid-November, but on a Saturday in late July, there were plenty of cars – or to be more accurate, pickups. I’m not saying they weren’t courteous; most drivers gave us plenty of room. But it’s one added stress that we’re not used to, and it distracted from the otherwise very pleasant scenery.

A beautiful PEI vista

Another natural factor we had to contend with was the heat and humidity. It was only 29C, which isn’t too bad for cycling, but it was so humid it felt at times like cycling through a warm fog. We managed to find a nice beach around 12:30 to have lunch, and we had a little swim, but it was cut short when I noticed a jellyfish in the water. Are there non-stinging jellyfish? I didn’t particularly want to find out.

And finally, anyone who tells you that PEI is nice and flat is flat-out lying. It’s not the Alps of course, but there are lots of rolling hills – hills that on a nice cool day without panniers loaded with 15 kg of stuff and the wind in your teeth would have been just fine; but today, they felt much steeper than perhaps they actually are.

In any case, we finally rolled up to our hotel (Mill River Resort) at about 5 pm after cycling just 51 kilometres; but it was maybe the hardest ride we’ve ever done on one of these tours. I’ll admit that we’re a little tired from the long drive yesterday and somewhat out of shape, but it’s been a very long first day of #cycletour2018.